Sorry for the long post but it’s well worth it!



I was talking to Bobby last year
about “stuff” and at some point he said, let me send you something to read. (See below). I asked him why he had not sent this to Bluegrass Unlimited for publication but he just mumbled…. Ugh, never got around to it.

So, as far as I know this was never published info. Very interesting for those of us here….


RIP my friend






Today's Resonator Guitar and How It Got There

Or..... The Evolution of "Many Small Things"

Or..... The Way IT Wuz............by Bobby Wolfe May, 2014

"The sound of a good sounding Resonator Guitar is the sum of many, many small things". Bobby Wolfe...date unknown.

I have made this statement to many people over the years and none have disagreed with it. Considering where we are now with the instrument, I'm thinking that many owners and maybe some of the younger builders will be surprised to learn the background of some of these "many small things" and how and when they happened. I'm already surprised because I thought that I had written all I wanted to say about the Resonator Guitar...But...my continued thinking about the long history of the resonator guitar wouldn't go away so here we go again.

There were no major changes in the instrument from its introduction in 1929 until the early 1960s. Different metal parts were used and there were other variations but no real design changes that upgraded the instrument. These "small things" type changes started around 1965 and continued for many years by many people making contributions. As I see it today, I can list 6 things that have contributed the most to the betterment of the resonator guitar. 1. The use of a better cone made of aluminum alloy rather than regular aluminum. 2. Elimination of the sound well. 3. Elimination of the neck rod. 4. The use of solid woods rather than plywood. 5. Re-sizing the instrument to achieve the desired amount of internal air volume. 6. Using baffles and porting to accomplish "Bass Reflex" sound boost which also makes the instrument more acoustic in nature

To give you a better feeling about" the way things wuz", I want to give you a very condensed time line of the popularity of the instrument. Starting with the 40s and on into the early 50s there were very few players. Speedy Krise who was picking in 1949 claimed that there were only 7 to 9 reso pickers at that time in the country. There were Oswald and Clell Summey, holdovers from the 30s, Josh Graves and a few others getting started, Tut Taylor in the early 50s and by then others such as Ray "Duck" Atkins, Monroe Queener, Shot Jackson, Speedy Krise, Bill Carver, Russ Hooper, Deacon Brumfield and a few others were on the scene. Only a few of these were nationally known. Uncle Josh playing with Flatt and Scruggs starting in 1955 inspired any number of new pickers and then The Coffee Shop, Hootenanny, Folk Music thing jacked up more interest in the late 50s and into the 60s. In 1965 the Bluegrass Festivals began and within a few years the interest in the Reso had exploded. By then the Dopyeras were again building the instrument. During the late 60s and early 70s unknown numbers of people caught the bug. This included the two young pickers Jerry Douglas and Mike Auldridge. They had caught it from Josh Graves and now both of them had

2
a fast growing following. The race was on and Uncle Josh was now the Hero of all Bluegrass reso pickers.

Dick DeNeve started building in 1968 and RQ Jones came along later with his custom instrument that became the Holy Grail to hundreds of new pickers. Shot Jackson was building the ShoBros and I had learned set up and adjustments and was hard at work with this along with repair and restoration of 30s Resos. Tut Taylor and son Mark built the Tennessee line of instruments from about 1972 through 76 or 77 and I started building in 1982. At about this time RQ was gone and Paul Beard was getting started. Gene Wooten, a fine picker, was working with Shot Jackson doing repairs, setups and some building. Anybody remember the Slyde he built? By the late 70s through the late 80s we had finally removed a lot of the mystery of setting up and adjusting a Resonator Guitar for optimum sound. For all this, I'm still talking about the original Dobro Resonator guitars. There will be much more later about the actual construction and design changes
made by the custom builders.

Mind you I'm relying mostly on my own memory here and not meaning to leave anyone out or failing to give credit where due. Further, for accuracy and better memory I have re-read my 1985 article on reso history, construction and repair. I found more information in my 4 articles on TuT Taylor, Josh Graves Jerry Douglas and Mike Auldridge that were written in the late 80s. Also, I have had several conversations with some "old timers" on these subjects. Still, you should regard this as a work of memory and opinions. It needed doing while a few of us are still around to remember this upgrading of the resonator guitar. Was it pure coincidence that I got my first reso in 1965 when the upgrading started? I was 35 years old and knew zilch about the instrument but I had many years of healthy interest and curiosity about it. This led me to my visits with the pickers, the DJ Conventions and to attending the first Festivals. Also I had two boys who started picking at that same time. The three of us quickly became "hound dogs on the trail" and thirsty for knowledge about our respective instruments; the Dobro, the Mandolin and the Guitar. My oldest son Darryl went on to become a professional picker and a nationally known authority on the Lloyd Loar Mandolin. I have written articles about reso, repaired them and have built over 200. The other son is still a picker but didn't get into it as much as we did.

For the "small things" story we have to start in 1965 because that's the year I realized a lifelong desire get an instrument and learn to be a picker. That's also the year I met Josh Graves and Tut Taylor. Over the next year or so I also met young Curtis Burch, Mike Auldridge and beginning young picker Jerry and his father John Douglas and the West Virginia Travelers. We have all been friends since that time. Before long I had become acquainted with Shot Jackson, Ray "Duck" Atkins and Deacon Brumfield. I mention all these pickers and this time frame because it was much later when I realized that all of them were playing

3
pre-war instruments that were set up and equipped just as they came from the factory. Most of them were playing round neck guitars with a metal nut riser
installed over the original nut. The pickers were mainly interested in picking them but not much interested in fixing them or trying to make them sound better. All of them wanted the instrument to sound better and louder but no one knew how to do it. At least that was my main impression. This might be a good place to mention the parts issue. During these early years, there were no parts to work with. Dobro had shut down in the early 40s and there were no dealers and no production until around 1959 when Ed and Rudy began a limited production of custom Dobros. Even then it was mostly with existing/left over parts. It was well into the 60s before parts started becoming available. Until then one had to make do with what he had. My experience was mostly with pickers in the Southeast and making contact with others at the Bluegrass Festivals that had just started and at the old DJ Conventions in Nashville. To confirm some opinions, I had a long conversation with Russ Hooper who is a great picker and knew all the early reso pickers in the Va., Pa. and Md. and DC areas and also, who was there from the beginning. I explained to him about the history I remember and he agrees that it was the same in his area with the pickers he knew at the time including pickers such as Kenny Haddock, Craig Wingfield, John Duffy, Bill Carver, and Speedy Krise. He says they didn't know much about the instrument or changes that would make it sound better. They were simply interested in picking them. Dick Blattenburger in Allentown,Pa. was a picker that was sort of "The Dobro Guru" of that area And I understand that he did some set-up and adjustment work for the local pickers. Also, I was told that Grady Jones, a collector in Silver Spring, Md. also did some set-up and adj. work.

With this background, I can now start detailing some changes. For example with one exception, there were no Reso string sets. There was one 1930s holdover set of Hawaiian strings, the Gibson mono-metal E 248 set that Josh used but no one I knew liked them because of the plain unwound 3rd string. There were no capos. The first capo was invented at about that time but no one had it and it wasn't very good anyhow. See my article: The History and Evolution of the Dobro Capo…Pub BU Mar 2002.

Starting with strings, the main items I will cover will be about the nut, bridge, tailpiece, cover plate and some on the cone. Maybe more things will slip in.

STRINGS:

Except for the Gibson Hawaiian set, there were no sets of reso strings and
there wouldn't be any for a few more years. Everybody used regular guitar strings and replaced one or more of them with singles of a different gauge. The most common practice was to replace only the first string with an 18 gauge string. Someone discovered that the D'Angelico 80/20 bronze strings made their box sound better and most of us switched to them. They did sound better but the
4
80/20 mix strings also went dead a lot quicker. We did several things during this time period that made things better. Dobro always installed the gears on the slotted peghead with the tuning knobs pointed to the rear of the guitar which was then standard for slot head guitars. We took the gears off and reinstalled them with the tuners up for easier tuning that worked for both lap and stand up playing. Another thing was installing the strings through the tailpiece where the string
would be under the tail piece on its way to the bridge. (rather than the normal position on top of the tail piece.)This put more downward pressure on the bridge and helped the sound. Tut or Curtis could have been the first to make any of these and other changes. Have talked with both about them but neither will claim to be the first that made any of them.

Tut started manufacturing The Tennessee line of instruments including the Reso around 1972 and continued through 1976 or 77. I noodled that they must have bought strings in quantity for this operation. I checked with both Mark and Tut.
Mark came up with a 1972 receipt from the Mapes Company for bulk strings
for Mandolin, Banjo and Reso. They later changed to GHS strings. He says that they also packaged them in sets for sale in their General Store Catalog business. This may have been the first post war reso string sets for sale to the general public. It is possible that the Dobro Co. or Mosrite had reso sets earlier. Next is Phosphor Bronze. D'Addarios first Phosphor Bronze string set came out in 1974. Mike Auldridge had been buying regular guitar sets for several years and replacing the first and second with a 16 and an 18. The music store operator
contacted D'Addario about what Mike was doing and this resulted in the J42 Mike Auldridge endorsed string set. This J42 set continues as a stock item. During my 1989 interview with Jerry Douglas, he told me a similar story about using GHS singles to make his sets and about someone contacting GHS about it and that's how the GHS-Jerry Douglas strings got started. He did not mention the date. At some point the Gibson E 248 set was discontinued. Not sure when but John Pearse Strings started making a set with a plain 3rd that Josh used for years. I am not sure what strings he used during his later picking years.

Around 1985 I packaged reso string sets using D'Addario phosphorus bronze. They were used on my custom instruments and also sold to my customers for years. For selecting these strings I got the help of my mandolin picker son Darryl. We reasoned that an equalized down pressure from each string on to the bridge would best activate the cone. We used the charts from a D'Addario book to determine the gauges. Each string size showed 2 or 3 notes at a standard scale length for normal tuning along with the tension for that note. After looking at a lot of sizes, notes, and tensions, we selected 35 lbs. as the target for our sizing of each string as that seemed to be a good average. For all 6 strings this would equal 210 lbs total tension on the tailpiece. With the gauges we chose, we had a set of strings with tension that felt about the same on each string, the instrument had a balanced sound, and the total tension was in the 200 to 220 lb. range. Note that this is the tension from the peghead to the tail piece. The downward
5
pressure on the bridge-cone assembly is just a small fraction of the total tension, depending on the break angle over the bridge inserts. This 200 to 220 lbs. pressure is real. The tailpiece is placing that much pressure on one spot on the end of your box and on the peghead on the other end. Look on line if you want an idea of how many reso string sets there are today. Check the string gauges in
the various sets and you will usually find little difference in the gauges. Most of the difference is probably due to tone preference. I find it interesting that ....when we discover the "right way" to do something.... or when we do something right...we then discover that most of us are doing it about the same way.

Nut.... Bridge....Bridge Inserts

Square neck resonator guitars were few and far between in the early 30s production and in some models they were simply not found. One of the Dopyera Brothers is quoted as saying it is cheaper just to make all round neck models and if they want to play it Hawaiian or Steel bar style, put a nut riser on it and play. That's exactly what most post war pickers had to do since most couldn't find a square neck model. The round neck models usually had a bone nut with narrow string spacing. Thankfully the metal nut risers had wider spacing which made for easier playing with a steel bar. The string spacing dimensions I will mention are based on the center to center measurement from string 1 to string 6. Also do not consider the figures as being the last word on accuracy as they were made using a regular ruler. The measurements are intended to simply give you the basic differences between then and now.

Original Bone nuts from the 30s....I found round neck string spacing to be from 1 7/16" to 1 1/2" .....some up to 1 3/4" The later 30s square neck models were more consistent at about 1 11/16" and they matched the spacing of several brands of nut-risers. In those early days I don't remember seeing a round neck with the nut replaced with a high bone nut for square neck playing. Just too easy to slip on a metal nut riser I suppose. This nut replacement practice was another of those "small things" upgrades. My first instrument was a "Mosrite" square neck with an aluminum nut. That nut was quickly replaced. As I got more into doing set-ups for others, I installed bone nuts as a standard part of the job on both round and square neck models. By this time most pickers liked wider spacing and preferred replacement of the nut. When I started building custom instruments in 1982, I had fabricated a marking tool for the nuts and haven't changed it since. It was 1 3/4 " string spacing and with the nut width at the fingerboard being 1 15/16". New nut blanks were usually 2". Nut height has been all over the place since the beginning. Usually it was too low and it was another reason for me to change out the nut. My standard nut height (above the fingerboard) has for years been between 3/8" and 7/16" with it usually being closer to 7/16 with variation being due to hand sanding and shaping. One of the bad practices I observed some time in the 80s and/or early 90s was OMI using plastic for the nuts on production Dobros. I later found out they had been buying plastic trimmings from
6
a sign maker as a cost saving measure. Remembering plastic nuts I replaced, I had no doubt this was true. As far as I know, Maple has been the standard for bridge inserts from the beginning. I have seen only one variation. The Dopyeras developed the so called "Mosrite" instruments in 1962 before selling the Company along with the Logo to Mosrite in 1966. This redesigned line of
instruments was modeled after the old 1930s 14 fret metal body guitar and had several what I will generously call "cost reducing features". Along with the smaller/shorter body with its less expensive wood panels, and a plain stamped cone of ordinary aluminum, it also featured an aluminum nut attached to the neck with a screw. Also, it had a spider bridge without the usual wood bridge inserts. The actual bridge was cast in aluminum as part of the spider. My new 1965 instrument had all these features. The spider bridge was replaced as soon as I could find one that was fitted with wood inserts and the nut was replaced with a stainless steel nut that probably remained on it until it was sold.

Bridge String Spacing...Original string spacing at the bridge varied widely. You would usually find it to be from 2 1/8" to 2 1/4 " but I'm sure I've seen some wider. Most inserts, like the nuts, were too low and needed replacement. The coverplate's low handrest with the rounded ends of the hand rest would not allow much variation in the height of the inserts. Down pressure was needed on the bridge but the cover plate situation just described did not allow much string drop between the bridge and the tailpiece. This is what led to the installation of the strings under the front of the tailpiece instead of on top as it was designed to be used. String spacing at the bridge did not change much for a long while. I used various bridge string spacings for a long time and then settled on a spacing I found on a chart. It is 2 3/16" and I have been using it for years now. With this, my nut scale of 1 3/4 and the tailpiece spacing at 2 1/4" one can see where my string alignment is nearly a straight shot from nut to tailpiece. Most of us curved/ ramped the top of both the nut and the bridge and then we ramped off the string slots on both. The complete string slot was usually done by notching with a file and then "hand sawing" with a string of the size needed. This elongated and ramped slot gave more string contact area to both the bridge and the nut. Additionally it provided a sharp departure point that is the same for all strings and avoids the sharp edges that normally would cause string breakage. Isn't it amazing how rarely a string breaks on a reso? One more point to make on string slots. Once the slot is "fitted" by sawing with a string of the correct gauge, a change to a smaller gauge will leave the string loose in the slot and a larger one will be pinched in the too small slot. Curtis Burch, Tut, and I and others tried all the materials we could think of for nuts and for bridge inserts. This included ivory, brass, steel, ebony and other woods, micarta, etc. Most worked OK but all had different tone and volume levels. None gave the satisfying volume and tone that was enough to make us change from maple. With the exception of one person, we all agreed that maple was the best. Mike Auldridge favored birch. His two old Regals were made of birch plywood and he felt that the birch inserts sounded

7
more compatible. I don't know if he continued this practice after he moved on from the old Regals.

In recent years it has become common practice to cap the maple insert with ebony. I believe this has been more common with the new custom instruments. I really don't know how much of this has been for a tonal change, for commercial
purposes, or just to be different. I do know that I've watched it over the years and as I remember, the caps were for just for strings 1 and 2. Then the cap covered all three strings on the treble insert. Later both the inserts were capped for all 6 strings. I can understand where the ebony would probably make a change in tone but, this ebony capping was played around with so much and for so long, I got lost. Further, I've never seen or heard of a report on them as to what they actually do. It leaves me unsure how the average person could know whether he needs the ebony caps or not.

I'm guessing that it was in the 80s that I first heard the question about why my custom instruments and others that I had set-up and adjusted seemed easier to play. I recall it being made by Phil Leadbetter who played my # 17 walnut guitar for about 10 years. He had checked out a number of guitars I had set-up plus a good many of my customs. Over the years I got the same comment from others but I didn't have an answer for them. Later I concluded that all this string spacing, string height off the fingerboard and at the hand rest, nut and bridge height, etc. had reached the point of being at about the right place for more comfortable picking. Considering the narrow nut spacing on the originals, the wider bridge spacing and the tailpiece, I realized that I had steadily widened the nut and narrowed the bridge to reach that point. Then when the wider tailpiece came along, it finished the process. Further, with all these changes I noticed that finally, I have the strings close to a straight line height above the fingerboard. All these are more examples of "the sound of a good sounding reso is the sum of many, many small things". Another given is, "when things get right you will find most everybody doing it about the same way", meaning, just about everybody sets up a reso pretty much to the same way now. Lately I've been hearing and seeing the term, "professionally set-up". What is that, who are these professionals and what are their credentials?

Tailpiece

The tailpiece stayed the same for many years. There was not much we could do with it to make the instrument sound better. One of the things we tried was the re-stringing already mentioned. Also, most pickers used a thin piece of cork...leather or cardboard under the string hole area of the tailpiece to eliminate unwanted noises. With the coverplates varying somewhat on their height, I noticed sometimes the string ball ends would be touching the coverplate. This would be a problem area for a rattle or buzz. I do know that we had to be careful and not jack up the tailpiece as this takes away from the down pressure of the
8
strings on the bridge and hurts the sound. I mostly use thin cork sheet and cut a small piece to cover the area of the string ball ends at the coverplate. This eliminates any rattles of the ball ends, does not lift it and lets the tailpiece rest directly on the coverplate. There was a time when I considered designing a new tail piece that would do two things. One, to give wider spacing to match the bridge and two was to make it adjustable in length. With the shorter scale on the
old resos, the length of the tailpiece put the string length past the bridge almost on a string harmonic. I recognized this and thought that having the tailpiece adjustable and exactly on that harmonic would be one of those small things that might help. Busy with building and repairing made it another of those things; I just never got a round tuit. That is however one of the reasons I stayed with the older shorter scale. The strings beyond the bridge are almost in tune with the guitar.
The only real change in the tailpiece is the one that did the most. Some time around the year 2000, Tut and Mark Taylor widened the spacing on the tailpiece to 2 1/4". Before then most had been in the 2 " to 2 1/8 " range. This now allowed a more straight line string alignment from the nut to the tailpiece which I had, for many years, thought would be more desirable. The current Paul Beard tailpieces use the 2 1/4 spacing but, for Gibson, imported, National and others, I'm not sure. In any event, this wider spacing was another of the many small things.

Cones... Coverplates... Spider Bridges

There were only about 3 different cones used in the 1930s instruments. Two were stamped and one was a spun cone and they all had a different sound in the instrument. We found a lot of the cones glued in place and some nailed in place. Mostly we were afraid to try to remove them for fear of ruining the cone and having nothing to replace it with. It took awhile to realize and prove the need for the cone to be laid evenly on a clean ledge free of paint, glue and whatever and, make it fit all the way around flush to the ledge. The spider legs must be sanded evenly flat on the ends and then must have all legs resting on the cone evenly. Most spiders had a slight arch in the legs. I believe they were cast flat and then arched. Also, the center hole is drilled and the bridge insert slot is usually cut with a saw. With the instrument tuned, the screw adjustment is to tighten it between 1/2 and 3/4 turn. Some change in tone can be heard up to a little over 1 full turn. When you reach somewhere past 2 turns we found that the bottom of the cone has started to bend upwards and you now need a new cone. One could say that we had to learn and earn respect for the cone / spider assy. and its needs for proper installation and adjustment. One of the things I well remember is that it was said that a spun cone was louder and sounded with more bell tone than a stamped cone. This was most likely due to the spinning process causing the metal to harden/temper. I know of only one spun cone that came out of the 30s but I was not familiar with it in the 60s. In the post-war years the newly revived company by the Dopyeras produced two versions of regular aluminum spun cones but not the same design as the 1930s spun cone. These were the ones most familiar until the RQ Jones custom reso came along. He used a new style
9
cone made by a guy named Quarterman. This new cone was outstanding. By then I was familiar with, and had studied the 30s Dopyera cone. By comparing the two I finally figured out the difference. The 30s Dopyera cone was the design/configuration of the Quarterman cone but he used an aircraft alloy that made his cone stiffer, stronger, shinier, louder and with more bass. Another difference in the cones was the larger diameter of the Quarterman. I was
never able to understand why he made it 1/16" larger. This created problems for us set-up guys when installing it into the old 30s resos. My solution was to use a Dremel router to enlarge the hole so that it would accept larger cone. Doing the rout out to enlarge the hole had the benefit of allowing you to level and clean the ledge the cone sits on all in one operation. I want to jump subject here to describe a really bad situation with some old boxes. We are still talking about routing the hole/ledge and this will be info about both the construction of the old soundwell boxes and new custom boxes. At 50 to 60 years of age with string tension pulling on the front of the guitar for all those years, I occasionally found that the hole had gone egg shaped. Yes, even with the soundwell for support and the plywood front and back. This is called cold flow. The dictionary describes it as "the distortion of a solid under sustained pressure especially with an inability to return to its original dimensions when the pressure is removed". Looking from the tail piece end of the guitar and running with the strings, the guitar sides have bulged outward. The guitar has deformed inward in the other direction (with the strings). With the cone in place or using a ruler to measure the hole, you can see the difference I'm describing. The hole is no longer round. I have seen several so bad you could see daylight on both sides of the cone with the cone edges no longer sitting on the ledge. After routing the hole back to being more or less round, I would install strips of wood on the inner edges of the soundwell, creating a new surface for the cone. Think about how important the sound well is as a structural member, being round, made of plywood and glued to both the front and back. Now, with no soundwell in most of the new custom instruments, think about the need for strengthening the box to make up for the lack of a soundwell. Back to discussing cones. Dobro brought back the original 30s design spun cone but still in ordinary aluminum sometime prior to 1993.These were the cones in use in 1993 according to Mike Replogle who came with OMI (as a Gibson Employee) some months prior to the finalization of the sale of OMI to Gibson. After that Mike Replogle, who became the new General Manager of OMI, got the aluminum switched over to the new alloy, making the cone now comparable to the Quarterman. This changeover took place in 1994 and continued until the production was moved to Nashville in 1997. Sometime in 1998, after he left Gibson, Mike got tooling made and started production of the cones and the # 14 spider and began supplying both to OMI/ Gibson and others There are a number of Quarterman style cones out there now but I think most of the good ones were made on the same equipment and in some cases by the same jobber/contractor that Dobro and Quarterman used for years. During the period of 1970s through the 80s and maybe the 90s, others including RQ Jones tried making cones but I found none that equaled the Quarterman.The Quarterman cone solved another
10
pesky problem. The regular aluminum cones of the 1930s had little strength. Usually, after a year or so of hard picking, string pressure on the spider bridge caused a bending/sinking down of the entire cone and spider bridge. This movement obviously lowered the bridge and lowered the string pressure on the cone. The actual bending took place around the outer edges of the cone in the roll/flex area. This lowered cone could not move as much and with the lowered
pressure on the bridge, the strings couldn't activate the cone as much. With all that, the sound went south. All this happened slowly over time and also depended to a degree on how much and how hard the picking had been. When this happened, the cone had to be removed and the roll area re-shaped and brought back to the original configuration. It was a delicate operation. Jerry D. in my 1989 interview stated that after doing this with old cones about 4 times the cone would have to be replaced. Flat statement.... I have examined several of my instruments that had been played over 10 years without any adjustments and the action was still where it should be. Specifically on 2 of these instruments... the owners were hard pickers and they were in bands that played regularly. The Quarterman cone was one of the best things that happened in the Dobro World.

Coverplates....There is an article (with pictures) I did about coverplate history on the website "reso-nation". Click on "discussion" and then "common threads". Basically, these old coverplates were OK for round neck picking but all had the low with rounded end handrest that did not allow a good set-up for raised strings. That's the why of stringing under the tailpiece to get more string rise and pressure on the cone. You couldn't raise the bridge insert height enough. Some of these old coverplates had such a low profile you would find it touching the spider. The OMI Company re-issued the fan pattern coverplate in 1969. Within a few more years they re-issued the Poinsettia pattern. Still no help as they were essentially the same as the old ones. Around 1974 Tut and Mark Taylor started production of the Lyre pattern coverplate. It was the Poinsettia pattern altered to include a Lyre pattern in each of the 4 sections. The first had a low handrest like the old ones but the overall profile/geometry was raised higher and allowed a higher bridge insert. (It raised it away from the spider) A later version around 2002 gave it a higher hand rest and with squared off ends that gave more clearance to the ends of the bridge inserts. All this made it much easier to get a good string angle from bridge to tailpiece and to maintain decent clearance in several areas of the set-up. This is another of the many small things I keep mentioning.
About free air opening in coverplates. I don't know of anyone who has calculated the actual free air area of the different coverplates. I have always thought the Poinsettia had more free area and then when the Lyre came out I felt it had even more free air area. It was not until I started building my ported models in 2001 that I experienced the difference. Several sets of good ears listened to the same instruments and all could hear the difference between the Fan CP and the Lyre CP. Which was best? Hard to say. The fan seemed to have a little more

11

of the old instrument sound. The sound kind of held back...maybe a little less close up volume. The Lyre seemed to be more of the contemporary ...in your
face sound and a little better projection. We may be simply talking about preferences here. For example, on my personal instruments I have always preferred the sound I get from Brazil Rosewood. On my first two, one from the 80s, the other from the 90s (screen models) I used the fan CP. On my third (ported) built in 2003 I preferred the Lyre. Go figure.

Spider Bridges....They got very little attention in those early days. Most as I remember had never had the legs sanded flat nor trued to the cone. They appeared to have been installed as they came from the mold. While learning that the cone needed to be fitted to the clean and trued wood ledge, at the same time we learned that the legs of the spider needed to be sanded flat for better contact with the cone. Also, that all the legs needed good contact with the cone etc. During these 1965 through 70s years was the time (as mentioned elsewhere in this article) we tried about everything we could find as bridge insert material. There were several spiders used in the 30s. Probably the most common was the short leg spider that was used with the lug cone. Then there was the spider with longer leg length. This one was used with the lug cone, the heavy aluminum stamped cone without the lugs and with the spun cone. There were few of the the stamped cones without the lugs. Like the lug cone, the aluminum was thick and usually with wrinkles from the stamping. Josh liked that cone. A third spider was the offset spider. The wood insert slot was offset from the center of the spider by about 1/2 ". To the best of my knowledge this cone was used on mostly metal boxes for correctly locating the bridge when another string scale was used or when a different body size was used. I have used what is known as the # 14 spider since it became available. I'm not really sure when the # 14 spider, in its present form appeared. There were 1930s spiders that were stamped # 14 but with a slightly different configuration. The # 14 was supposedly an identification mark for the mold being used. I suspect that the metal alloy is the same and that the mold was altered or a new one was made sometime during or after the Mosrite years of 1966-70. I don't recall ever getting any other spider from OMI during those years. Most of my repair work and most of my custom building utilized the #14 spider bridge. Tut and Mark Taylor came out with a close copy. They did metal analysis work and claimed that all was identical except theirs was a cleaner and smoother casting etc. I did use some of them in my new boxes and did not notice a difference. And Yes Boys and Girls, There was a solid brass spider made just like the #14. Gawd, how many people suggested a brass spider in those years? But, I'm giving no details. I tell you about it just to show the level of our knowledge during those days and maybe the why of everything having to be learned through the "School of Hard Knocks". Today many of us could say with a clear conscience, "obviously it sounded like a brick". Then, I could say, "Where were you when we needed you?"

12


Summary
I'm going to stick my neck out and say that by the late 80s and early 90s, most of the "small things" that went into improving the resonator guitar had been found.
Some by those early pickers of the 60s and 70s, some by the early guys doing set-up, repair and restoration work and some by the early luthiers. Some of the early custom boxes that did not sound all that good served as good lessons learned. For example, some were built too big and they sounded stringy, boomy and guitar like. That was a lesson telling us that even though we knew the 30s
boxes were too small/thin, they could also be too big/thick. I will use some of my own experiences to illustrate some changes made by the custom builders during the 80s and 90s. In my own case I had recognized the Dopyera design as a bass reflex speaker box. (not patented until 1931). My repair, set-up and restoration and alteration work of about 15 years demonstrated more proof of it to me. When I started building in 1982 my immediate goal and hope was to get this crazy guitar shaped speaker cabinet to function within the basic bass reflex principles. First was to get the internal air quantity correct... then ...use a baffle to get the back load on the cone correct. The results from my first several instuments showed that I had more mid and bottom along with more volume /power across the strings. Experimentation had it very close to where I wanted it by the time I had built my 6th instrument in 1984. In 1992 with my # 35 I built my first instrument using my new side bender. I had altered the shape of the instrument slightly which increased the air volume by a small amount. That small amount put the internal air volume dead on for my design. It was a noticeable improvement and later tests proved it. To be more accurate in describing my designs, I need to state that my installation of the baffle inside the instrument turned it into two internal sections. This makes it a double bass reflex design. This design, along with the port(s) makes it a much more complex set-up than a standard bass reflex design which would be simply an open instrument with no soundwell, no baffle but with a port. By the 90s there were a number of custom instruments on the market and many were a vast improvement over the older instruments in terms of volume and tone. Whether the luthiers knew it or not, the changes they were making were mostly in the area of speaker cabinet acoustics. Resonator guitars were showing major changes, the sound getting better and better and the instrument was more acoustic in nature. It's sad to say but, there went that "good ole dobro sound". Most of us think it was good evolution as we improved the volume, tone range, projection, and instrument resonance. My comment to describe the sound of my instruments was, "the Wolfe Resos all have a family sound but each is flavored by the wood used in the box". It was very obvious to me and my customers. A batch of 4 instruments of the same wood sounded very nearly the same. A batch of 4 instruments of different woods all had that "Wolfe Sound" but with noticeably different tonal qualities depending on the wood. My last major design change was in 2001 when I replaced the screens with port holes. They were located more towards the top end of the box where they could
13


function better in the phase shifting function of the Bass Reflex Design. After tuning the port size and the baffle openings and rechecking the internal air quantity I had an even better Resonator Guitar than before and I was satisfied that I had reached my ultimate goal. If anything, the port hole change made them even more acoustic in nature. I now need to mention two other major
design/engineering changes that made major contributions to turning the resonator guitar into a more acoustic instrument. One was the soundwell removal and the other was removal of the neck rod. The combination of plywood front and back, the heavy plywood soundwell and the neck rod attached to the back panel made for a very strong and rigid instrument and didn't allow much vibration. This is correct for a good speaker cabinet design but not for a musical instrument. John Dopyera, even in the days before speaker boxes were invented, believed this was the way it should be for the dobro. All the sound should come from the spider cone and the box should not vibrate/resonate. Brother Rudy thought the box should vibrate/resonate and blamed the neck rod. Most of the custom builders eliminated both for the improvements in sound. There are still a few around still using the soundwell construction.
However..... the lack of a sound well leaves the front of the box weak. This is specially so when using solid wood instead of plywood. Various changes had to be made to strengthen the front panel including the installation of "sound posts". They were never meant to be sound posts since they are glued in place as structural members. They (usually 4) are simply support members around the edges of that big hole (for the cone) that uses the back of the instrument to help support the front and to keep the cone ledge level. Along with other structural changes, one major change I made was the redesign of the tail block and heel block. The blocks were standard guitar end blocks that were, simply stated, narrow and thick. I could see no need for this thickness and went to a 7" wide tail block and thinner at about 3/4" and a neck block 5" wide and 3/4" thick. This was plenty strong for bolting the neck and it spreads a wider glue joint across both ends of the front and back panels that adds much more strength to the structure. Also, this helped eliminate shearing in the grain of solid wood front because of the pull on the tailpiece through the narrow tail block. Most builders were simply bolting the necks on rather than going to the dove tail joint used on most regular guitars. I kept the neck rod for years but did use lag bolts along side the neck rod for more strength because I saw what the upward pull of the neck did to the front of many of the old guitars. Another problem with the 1930s neck rod was it being glued into the neck using hide glue. It would sometimes come loose and this became a major repair job. During the testing of the experimental ported models and thinking of the fact that these boxes were far more acoustical then the old ones, I decided to see who, John or Rudy, was right about the neck rod regarding vibration. I disconnected the neck rod from the back panel and found that it definitely improved the sound. I then cut the rod out and later cut it out of several more instruments. There was definite improvement in every case with
14

more and better sound from the instrument along much greater vibration of the instrument. No more neck rods in Wolfe Resos. I didn't have to make any construction changes due to the neck rod removal as I was already bolting the necks with 4 lag bolts. By now there has been so many small things changed on the original Dopyera instrument, and over such a long time, I don't think anyone can list them all. Maybe surprising but, I don't know of any change that has been patented. I had several people insist that some of my changes were patentable
but I always felt that they were simply for the betterment of the instrument for everybody. I believe that most others who implemented changes felt the same way. We now have many very good instruments to choose from and it is, now, in my opinion, simply a matter of selecting the one that has the sound you prefer and/or the price you want to pay!

Bobby Wolfe ...May 2014

Edited with small changes and additions Nov. 2015...BW